In the early stages of growing a business, marketing activities are often delegated to an intern or are completed when you have spare time. But if you’re at a point in your business where you really want to become successful and increase revenue, then you need to get serious about marketing and hire a dedicated professional to create a marketing strategy and execute tactics.
However, hiring a marketing professional is not an easy task. Many candidates will describe themselves as digital ninjas or marketing gurus, and these professionals rarely live up to their name. Instead, you need to ask the right questions that will help you delve deeper into their professional skills and even their work ethic and values. Hiring a new employee at a small business is a big deal and you need to make sure the candidates not only fits the job description but also matches the company culture.
Before the interview, make sure to prepare a list of relevant questions to ask the candidate based on the position they’re applying to. If you’re hiring your first marketing professional, then you will want them to be more of a generalist, like a Marketing Specialist or Marketing Manager, than a specialist, like a Graphic Designer or Data Analyst. The questions below will help when adding a marketing generalist to your company.
Background
Most interviews start off with fact-based questions to verify the candidate’s previous employment history and allow you to cross reference the information from the candidate with their resume or LinkedIn profile. If the candidate has lied or provided false information, then this is a huge red flag and you can immediately rule out the candidate. In addition to providing verification, these fact-based questions allow you to explore their background and how much experience they actually have. Since many focuses in the marketing industry are fairly new, it’s important to look for candidates who have experience, not just education history.
How long have you worked in the industry?
What has been your most successful campaign in the past?
Behavioral
One of the best ways to predict a candidate’s future success is by their past behaviors. Make sure to ask candidates questions about how they handled previous situations in order to see if that fits with how your company operates and how you would want them to handle the scenario.
Have you gotten around obstacles that prevented you from completing projects? Describe the obstacle and what you did to get around it.
Tell me about a situation at a past job where you had to take initiative.
Culture
Not only should your potential candidate have the right skills and experience, but they should also fit your company culture. Asking questions about teamwork will help you weed out candidates by determining whether their answers fit the style of the people they would be interacting with the most. For example, if they talk about how teamwork is important but they prefer to work alone, that might be a red flag if you know your employees work best by collaborating in group settings. Also, make sure to ask candidates about their passions. They may be an exceptional marketer, but it’s good to hire people with outside interests, passions, and hobbies.
What is teamwork to you?
What are some of your hobbies or interests that are not listed on your resume?
Situational
Marketing is a field that is constantly being changed and influenced by new technology and trends. It’s essential for your marketing candidates to stay up to date on these trends and be able to react when something does change. You can tailor these questions to describe situations that have previously happened in your business or that areas that you’re monitoring. Either way, you should look for answers that describe specific strategy shifts or that refer to statistical data, not answers based on a gut feeling only.
How do you consume information and stay on top of current marketing trends?
Google has recently updated one of their algorithms and your previous SEO tactics aren’t having success anymore. What do you do next?
Work Ethic and Integrity
Working at a small business often requires a lot of hard work and trust. If one person starts speaking negatively about the company or leadership, then it can negatively affect your whole team. You need to make sure that the person you hire will work until they get the job done and who also has high moral principles.
Has there ever been a time when your work day was over but your tasks weren’t finished? What did you do?
Describe a time where you integrity was challenged. How did you handle it?
These questions should help jump start your list of questions to ask potential marketing candidates. You can add to these questions and modify them as you see fit.
